


Marine Sh*t

by Dariary_Absentee



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Fluff, Hogwarts Fifth Year, Multi, Smart Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington Has Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 06:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16131173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dariary_Absentee/pseuds/Dariary_Absentee
Summary: Billy is a Gryffindor with a bad temper. Steve is a Hufflepuff just trying to get by. It's been a few years since they talked to each other...and maybe that's for the best.





	Marine Sh*t

Steve can’t sleep most of the time. Most nights he tries to be a good student and follow the rules, most nights he can shut his eyes and try to go back to sleep, but tonight isn’t one of those nights. On nights likes these dark walks around campus are the only thing that can put him to sleep like maybe if he scares himself to death while he’s already awake he won’t when he’s asleep. If Hopper finds him stalking the grounds again maybe it’ll jolt him enough to never want to wake up in the middle of the night again.

Except he doesn’t

He wound up at the Black Lake after a while. Glossy ink-like water stretches out straight into the dark blue sky and pearly stars. For a moment, Jonathan’s muggle hobby of photography makes a little more sense to him especially when he looks out at the water and how beautiful it looks almost entirely still. The sight is perfect except one, lone shadow of a person at the pier. The lamp at their side glows bright and orange illuminates their hunched back and their head plunged into the water.

Steve made his way down the hill toward the lamplight, like a moth to a flame. The closer he got he recognized the broad shoulders and the Gryffindor robes wrapped around them. He just couldn’t believe he found him face down ass in the air with his head stuck in the water.

He didn’t think he’d ever see Billy Hargrove alone again; not after their fight in their second year and the boggart thing in their third. He tries to avoid him when can help it, he really only sees him during their Herbology class and Gryffindor’s Quidditch games. Most of the time Billy is just a blur in his periphery.

But he’s a blur to pretty much everyone at Hogwarts, he’s like a firework bright, present and explosive and then gone. He doesn’t hang around anyone for too long as far as Steve knows and he hasn’t since the boggart incident. If he were Billy, and he almost was, he wouldn’t either.

His eyes fell on the book at Billy’s side.

 _Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs_. It’s studious, thick book that he could only imagine in the arms of someone like Nancy or the most erudite Ravenclaws. Not with Billy Hargrove who’s currently got his head dunked in the water like he’s bobbing for apples at a festival.

Steve nudged his foot with his a few times. “Please don’t tell me you’re out here screeching into the water.” He kicked Billy’s foot again, “hey Hargrove, a land lover wants to speak to you.”

Billy came up for air then, hair dripping wet at his shoulders and pale skinned from the frigid waters. His face twisted in too many directions. He swiped a hand down his face boorishly. “ _Huh_?”

Steve grinned.

He looks crazy. 

Steve remembered Nancy saying Billy spends a lot of time in the Slytherin common room, but she says he's hardly ever there to talk to Carol and Tommy. As if he’s the one that’s supposed to care about that. She had a book perched on her knees, quill flicking this and that way as she took her notes for their O.W.L exams and explained how Billy sits in front of the glass viewing the water like he’s waiting for something. She said, if anyone were to care about it I thought it would be you.

He doesn’t...technically.

Until now.

“What the hell are you doing, man? It’s way past midnight.”

Billy wiped his face in his robes, his muffled response came through. “You gonna tattle, Harrington?” He gave him the same challenging look he’s been giving him since they knocked shoulders on their first train to Hogwarts. Five years, one fistfight, and one revelation later Steve thinks nothing has changed.

“No,” Steve said.

He looked down at the book again, “Merpeople, huh?”

It’s not like he didn’t think Billy had hobbies or interests or anything like that, but it’s also like finding out your teachers don’t live and breathe school. Except instead of hobbies he thought Billy lived and breathed meat-headed Neanderthalism and conflict when he isn’t shutting himself away.

Billy grabbed his notebook and started writing with a pencil. “Yeah.”

“Why Merpeople?”

Billy kept writing. “I like marine shit.”

Steve looked out at the lake, he let his tongue roll between his teeth. “Maybe you should’ve been a Ravenclaw?”

That got Billy’s attention. His cheeks are red and he sputters a little before answering, before he bares he teeth and snaps, “fuck off.”

Steve should’ve taken that as a polite warning and left, but sleep deprivation makes everyone a little stupid, a little insane. He settled down on the grass next to him with his hands carrying most of his weight and his legs stretched out. “So you come out here and--”

“I can’t speak Mermish, that’s physically impossible without a spell,” Billy explained, interrupting him, writing so quickly Steve’s eyes can barely follow the movement of the bubblegum pink eraser. “But I can understand it.”

Steve blinked.

That’s pretty cool actually.

“Oh,” he said softly. His nose wrinkled. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not with these,” Billy tapped the pencil to his ears stuffed with cotton.

“So...Billy Hargrove understands Mermish,” Steve said rolling the idea around in his head. _Crazy_. “How do you respond?”

“Sign language,” Billy responded. “In the Slytherin common room, I can sign to them and the can see.”

“ _Fluently_?” Steve gawked. “You understand Mermish and you taught the Merpeople sign language?”

Billy’s cheeks tinged red again this time all the way to tips of his ears, he rubbed the back of his neck. “The ones that’ll talk to me,” Billy murmured like he’s embarrassed.

He shouldn’t be.

Steve looked at him with fresher eyes taking his jaw aHe shouldn’t be.nd the wet, jet black lashes that frame his eyes as blue as the ocean he loves so much. A few years made Billy more attractive, some distance made him a little less disgusting to be around.

“You have time for this?”

“Yeah…,” he shrugged. “Uh...I took it up in the middle of third year.”

Right after the boggart incident probably.

He coughed a little, went back to notes.“What are you doing out here, Harrington?” He asked. “We can’t have Hufflepuff’s pretty boy missing his beauty sleep.”

Steve snorted. “Yeah,” his lips pulled into a smirk. He’s always a pretty boy and everything with him has to do with being a Hufflepuff or being beautiful. His face felt hot. “Sure,” he drew his knees up to his chest, “just couldn’t sleep.”

Billy didn’t respond for a long time, Steve didn’t really want him to. They were creeping dangerously close to a conversation about the boggart lesson in their third year.

“Shit Harrington,” he said, pausing in his writing. “Nothing puts you to sleep faster than a lesson, I could read my notes to you if you want?”

Steve blinked, leave it to Billy to offer him backhanded help. His insomnia is the reason he’s asleep in class most of the time. “Fuck you,” he said half-heartedly. 

Billy shrugged, he was grinning. “I just thought I’d offer some help. I’ve been told I got a nice voice.”

Or it used to be grating. Steve could’ve sworn it was like death in his head having to listen to him speak, his laughter sounded like a virus. Not so much anymore. Steve sighed, he thinks there’s probably no other option if he feels like he’s wide awake still. He remembered his nanny used to read to him before bed and that made him sleepy enough.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “Let me hear your notes.”

Billy grinned again with all his damn white teeth and a little tongue, his eyes sparkled brightly. He flipped back to the beginning of his notebook, the pages made an audible _thump_. If lessons really do put him to sleep he’ll be out in no time.

“Sure thing, pretty boy,” Billy said. “I’ll make sure you get your beauty sleep.”


End file.
